Loft was seeing red. Literally. This whole place was bathed in bright red light, and when he looked down to his hands, it looked like someone had painted it with tomato juice. He licked his palm and frowned, sad that it didn't taste as yummy as it looked. The light was coming, oddly enough, from a large pool of lava beneath him. Loft wasn't sure how he'd gotten here, but he'd been zipped and zapped to so many places so many times that it didn't bother him anymore. He was just glad that he'd touched down on a floating rock instead of the lava- that might hurt a little. The rock was small, barely large enough to lie down on, but it held firm when Loft shifted his weight around. At least it wouldn't capsize on him and dump him into the lava. There were a lot of other similar rocks scattered around the lava pool, and Loft knew that he'd be able to jump between them without too much risk. There was a big Daddy Rock in the center of the pool, about as wide as a small house, and it had the scary look of something that called for his blood. Loft pinched his arm and told himself to think positively; maybe he wouldn't die a horrible painful death this time!
Eri sat cross-legged on her rock, slowly rocking from left to right while singing a wordless song. The rock swung from left to right with her, much to her enjoyment, resulting in a happy smile and a little more loud singing. Finally, she stopped singing, although she never stopped rocking, and she reached into the pouch around her neck. Pulling out a large maple leaf, she dropped it next to her. Her Leaf Puppet immediately materialized in the very spot she had dropped the leaf in. "Go take a look at that!" she exclaimed, looking at the puppet and pointing at the pool of fiery water below her. It had to be fiery, because she could feel the warmth up here. But that made no sense, did it? Water couldn't be fiery, silly Eri! Water was watery, and fire was fiery! She needed someone to go check, but she couldn't do it herself. She couldn't swim! The puppet followed the line of her pointing finger, plunging itself into the water next to the big rock that had been floating in it. It didn't make a splash, strangely enough. However, the puppet did start flailing, its limbs rattling loudly as it tried to lift itself out of the water. Eri stretched out her hand and made a gesture as if she was grabbing something, yanking the imaginary bundle of strings. The puppet came flying up, colored black on the underside and obviously falling apart. So the fiery water WAS fiery! And it was very, very real. Eri giggled, dispelling the puppet and catching the maple leaf in her hand, putting it back into the pouch around her neck and picking up the stick that her lantern was attached to. She then leapt to her feet, causing the rock to wobble forward. Fun times were to be had, especially if her eyes weren't deceiving her and she had actually seen a playmate on the other side of the lake. Grinning a face-splitting grin, she raised her free hand to wave as she put the lantern over her shoulder.
[[Sorry for the wait. Some stuff went down IRL.]] "The floor is lava!" Loft leaped from one stone to another, giggling as a couple of them swayed. See, see, it was really cool; he never ever knew which rocks were the Ugly Rocks and which ones were the Silly Rocks! The Ugly Rocks were the boring ones. They never moved when he jumped on them. They just sat in the lethal lava, all bland and dull. The Silly Rocks were Loft's favorite, 'cause they were fun! They wobbled and wibbled like crazy all the time whenever he touched them; they were just so silly! Dangerous, definitely, but so silly! The game was jumping over the lava and onto new rocks, guessing what kind of rock the next one'd be. He wasn't right very often, but he liked it that way. It made him laugh, and laughing was great! It made his Bunny Hood laugh too, its ears all flopping and flooping around like the silly rabbt it was, and what made his Bunny Hood happy made him happy. He was avoiding Big Daddy Rock, though, 'cause it seemed nasty to him. He'd much rather stay on these fun rocks and have a blast over a fiery pit of doom than go to that mean old thing. He skipped to another rock, his arms windmilling as it pwooshed a little in the lava. Loft wasn't really scared of the burning red stuff; he'd been in places like this before. There was nothing to be afraid of, not with magic keeping him safe. His blue eyes blinked as he realized that there weren't actually any protective scribbles on the rocks, but then he shrugged; the Arena was weird like that. He'd once been blown into thousands of little Loft-bits, but a big Darknut had zapped him back together again like it was nothing. Loft'd learned not to think too much about it; it made his head hurt. He looked up, wondering whether this place had a roof or a sky or what, when- "whoa!" Someone was waving at him! At him! All smiling and happy and not-quite-Hylian-y; who on earth was that thing? Was it a new kind of dolly? Loft didn't know, but he was so super excited to find out! He raised his hand and waved back, laughing, his teeth flashing in the red lava light. "Hi," he called across the way, "what's your name?"
When initially, Eri got no response, she pouted. Didn't he want to play with her? She would warp up to him, but her Leaf wouldn't let her. Instead, she dropped the leaf again, conjuring up a new puppet that was not burnt in any way. Well, if he wasn't going to come to her, she was going to go to him! She turned and jumped from this rock to the next, and the next, and the next, until she came within earshot of the boy and heard him ask what her name was. She suddenly snapped shut though, remembering how afraid she was to talk to people. Instead, she nervously shifted back and forth on one rock while he stood on the next. And then she saw it. He was a bunny! He had bunny ears, and only bunnies had bunny ears, right? Right? Those were awesome and fluffy and adorable, and Eri wanted them! She beamed, jumping towards the rock that he stood on and landing not even an inch away from him. While still holding her lantern with one hand, she reached up with the other and tried to grab one of the ears, falling just short.
[[Bit of a long post, sorry, but his thought process just started snowballing.]] Lava-game! Loft clapped delightedly, watching as the thingamajiggy hopped from rock to rock just like he'd done. It liked playing games too! This made Loft so happy that his Bunny Hood wiggled in excitement. He loved it when people were fun; a lot of people didn't like Loft having fun. They yelled and snipped and sniffed all nasty like, just like this one guard woman he'd met. She'd actually shot him in his poor, vulnerable, defenseless hand and thrown him into a mean old cell just because he'd wanted some candy. It almost made him cry, that there were people who were so cranky and nasty that they'd rather hurt him than let him have sugary sweets. Loft's attention was caught by something bobbing behind the strange scarecrow. It looked like... like a simpler kind of dolly. If the person jumping from rock to rock was a super expensive, really detailed dolly, the thing ambling behind it looked like the cheap kind of dolly that broke really easily and only costed a couple of rupees. Loft wasn't sure where the new dolly came from, but he was too busy jumping up and down in excitement to waste any limited brain space caring. His soon-to-be friend was almost here, and Loft was so happy that it felt like his heart was going to explode and shower smiles and candy and jell-O all over the place! He was that excited. When the dolly didn't tell him its name, Loft shrugged. He didn't mind that it didn't feel like talking; he could chat enough for both of them. As long as the dolly was fun and didn't break any of his super-important rules, he was fine. He had some very, very important rules of friendship that absolutely needed to always be met: first, no dolly that wanted to be his friend could have blonde hair. If it had blonde hair, it was a girl's dolly, and Loft was too manly to play with girly dollys. Second, it had to be fun. All of Loft's friends were fun, so if this dolly wanted to be his friend, it needed to be fun too. And finally, most importantly of all, the one rule that must never ever be broken, the one thing that Loft would not stand, the one rule that, if broken, would make Loft turn into a wild, raging beast of anger, the only action that would push him over the edge, was: Never. Ever. Steal Loft's jell-O. But since there wasn't any jell-O here, Loft wasn't worried about the dolly breaking that rule. When it reached up and tried to grab his Bunny Hood, Loft laughed and jumped back to another rock. It wibbled and wobbled threateningly, but Loft ignored that and called across to the dolly. "You," he said, pointing and blinking at the dolly, "you can't touch the Bunny yet." He jabbed a thumb into his chest. "I earned the right to touch the Bunny; you're not, you're not ready yet." He laughed and hopped up and down, his blue eyes glittering in the red light of the lava. "Ooh," he said, so excited that his voice was ramped up a couple octaves and cracked with energy, "ooh! I have an idea, yeah! If you," he pointed at the dolly, "can catch me," he pointed at himself, "I'll let you touch the Bunny." Loft laughed and turned, jumping to the next rock. He giggled and looked back to the dolly. "Come on," he said, waving, "catch me if you can!"
